Contents

Story

Plot

Shadow Man revolves around an African
American man by the name of Michael LeRoi, a former English
literature student made into the Shadow Man, a voodoo
warrior. Ten years prior to the game's events, Mike flunked his
classes and his gambling habits exhausted his funds, forcing him to
take up work as a taxi cab driver in Chicago, all the while keeping his failure a
secret from his family back home in New Orleans. During a routine drop-off one
night, his passenger was killed in a drive-by shooting, leaving a
briefcase containing $20,000 behind. Mike took the money back home
to spend on his family, using it to pay for his younger brother
Luke's operation, among other things. However, the gang tracked him
down and began issuing threats against him and his family. In
desperation, Mike sought out a bokor to give him protection against the gang's
attacks. This protection worked, but only for him; Mike's entire
family was killed in a drive-by, leaving only Mike alive, albeit
barely.

Upon recovering from a coma and
near-fatal injuries, Mike discovered he had lost his memory. The
bokor tracked him down and collected the price for Mike's
protection: Mike became his zombie slave, working under the pseudonym 'Zero'.
Eventually, Mama Nettie, a powerful but dying voodoo priestess,
arrived with several thugs to take revenge on the bokor for hits he
had ordered against several of her gang members. In the ensuing
chaos, Mama Nettie dragged Mike into a back room and used her
remaining powers to forcibly implant the Mask of Shadows, a
powerful voodoo artifact, into his chest. In
doing so, Mike became the Shadow Man, the next in a long line of
African voodoo warriors blessed by the gods with supernatural powers
to protect both their native tribes and the entire world from
threats crossing over from the spiritual plane known as
Deadside — the place where everyone goes, without exception,
when they die. In addition to his newfound powers, Mike regained
his memory, which began to torment him endlessly. Unable to simply
end his suffering due to his newfound immortality, Mike had little
choice but to enter into Mama Nettie's service. It is here where
the events of the game begin.

One night in 1999, after an evening spent with Mike , Mama
Nettie has a prophetic dream in which five serial killers known as
'the Five', under the direction of an immensely powerful and evil
being known as 'Legion', are attempting to bring about
the Apocalypse by
transporting an immortal army of hideous monsters to Earth
(Liveside) through an enormous construction on Deadside simply
called 'Asylum'. After awaking Mike, she tells him of this and
instructs him to immediately travel to Deadside using his strong
emotional attachment to his dead brother's teddy bear as a conduit and meet up with
Jaunty, a skull-headed snake who acts as Nettie's eyes and ears in
Deadside. This is where the adventure begins.

Themes and
settings

Shadow Man has many varying themes and settings, from
swampland just outside of New Orleans to barren
wastelands in Deadside, from an underground railway station in London to blood-soaked
slaughter-rooms in Asylum. The overall mood and atmosphere of the
game is very dark and often violent. The music was composed by Tim Haywood.

Characters

Protagonists

Michael LeRoi/Shadow Man: Mike is the
character that the player takes control of throughout the entirety
of the game. A failed English literature student turned hitman turned world-saving voodoo
warrior, Mike has had a complex past (see above) and is haunted by
the memories of his brother.

Mama Nettie: Agnetta, or Mama Nettie, is the
voodoo priestess who created the Mask of Shadows and controls the
bearer of it. Although she appears to be in her mid-20s, she is in
fact centuries old, her soul inhabiting the body of a young woman
who double-crossed Nettie nearly two-hundred years earlier.
Although powerful, Nettie can not travel to Deadside, hence her
need for Mike and Jaunty's assistance. Nettie is one of two
characters that the player can converse with regularly in the game.
Her main purpose in the game is to provide the player with advice
pertaining mainly to accessing areas and gaining items. However,
this advice often comes in the form of a vague allusion as opposed
to a direct reference or command.

Jaunty: Jaunty is Nettie's associate in
Deadside, the victim of a kidnapping, an occult experiment and a
bungled deal with said voodoo priestess. When walking back from the
pub late one night in his hometown of
Dublin, Jaunty found himself at the mercy of a group of students
dabbling in the occult, who ritually sacrificed him as a part of
their experiment. Upon seeing this, Mama Nettie, who happened to be
nearby at the time of the incident, spoke to Jaunty from across the
gap between the spiritual planes and convinced him to join her in
exchange for a new body and a chance to live again. Unfortunately,
Nettie fails to mention that Jaunty's Deadside incarnation is that
of a snake with a skull for a head donning a top hat, while his Liveside
incarnation is that of a disfigured dwarf. Jaunty is the second
character with which the player can converse in the game. His main
role is to reinforce and clarify the advice that Nettie gives.

Antagonists

Milton Pike: A member of the group of serial killers recruited by Legion known as
'The Five'. Milton is known as the "Video Nasty Killer" because of
his habit of videotaping his victim's deaths and mailing the tapes
to the local police departments. He also served in the Vietnam
war and the United States Army Special Forces, the
former of which may help explain his psychopathic nature. Not long before the
events of the game Milton was apprehended by FBI agents after an
intense gun battle and incarcerated in the fictional Gardelle
County Jail in Texas, which is where he can be found in the game.
Milton serves as a boss character
in the game.

Marco Cruz: Another member of 'The Five'.
Called the 'Repo Man' by police due to his modus operandi of
gaining entry to people's homes under the guise of a repossession agent,
Marco preyed on couples in and around the Death Valley and Mojave Desert areas. He also worked as a
DJ for a short period of time before being
imprisoned in Gardelle County Jail. Marco serves as a boss character in the game.

Avery Marx: Another member of 'The Five'.
Known as the "Home Improvement Killer" because of his MO of cutting off
the power to his victim's homes before stalking them in the dark
wearing a pair of night vision
goggles. Through several implications in his in-game dialogue,
it appears that Avery was molested as a child by his own
mother, whom he later killed. Part of his MO is to leave the skull of a canary with a written poem rolled up inside at
the scenes of his crimes. As such he raises canaries at his
home.

John G. Pierce/Jack The Ripper: Another member
of 'The Five', John Pierce is a fictional character in the game
based on the infamous real life serial killer of the Victorian era known
only as Jack the
Ripper. The game starts with a cut-scene in 1888 (the year of
the 'Ripper' murders) in a sewer beneath London where Legion appears before John (who is
an architect by trade)
and convinces him to commit suicide so as to cross over to Deadside and
design Legion's "Asylum", a place for all the "misunderstood
individuals of this world" (serial killers, rapists, pedophiles etc.) to seek
refuge. There he stays until 1999, when he returns to Liveside and
begins killing again. John/Jack can be found in the 'Underground
Railway: London' level of the game and serves as yet another boss character there.

Victor Batrachian: Born to a wealthy banker in
Geneva, Switzerland, Victor is the leader of 'The
Five', known as "The Lizard King". Victor was quite a brilliant
student, and by the end of his education held a Ph. D. in forensic
psychiatry and was a licensed General Practitioner. This is
when he began murdering his elderly female patients after
convincing them to leave him large sums of money in their wills. As
the heat rose in Europe, Victor used forged documents to attain a
Green Card and emigrate to the US. Again he began killing, taunting the
authorities with letters signed 'The Lizard King', but was
eventually captured, tried and convicted for his crimes in the US. By the time the events of the game
begin, he is awaiting punishment on death row in Gardelle County Jail. Victor is
another of the game's boss characters.
His surname may be an intentional pun on the developer's part, as "batrachos"
(βατραχος) means "frog" in Classic Greek.

Legion: Legion is the main
antagonist of the game. It is never stated exactly what Legion is
in the game, though it is implied in a small piece of text in the
game's instruction manual which quotes Mark 5:9

And He asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My
name is Legion: for we are many.

This would suggest that the Legion from Shadow Man is
indeed the same demon exorcised
by Jesus in the bible. Legion also quotes and paraphrases this
passage himself on several occasions throughout the game and, with
increasing regularity towards the end of the game, refers to
himself as 'we' or 'us'. The last few words of the passage, "for we
are many", are also used as a sort of mantra by 'The Five'. Legion appears as a
somewhat oddly dressed (wearing a grey morning coat, purple
pin-stripe trousers and a bright yellow shirt) yet aristocratic man
of between thirty and forty years of age wielding a cane-sword. However, most
perturbing of all is Legion's mouth, which seems to be constantly
bleeding. In addition to being the game's main antagonist, Legion
is also the game's final boss.

Gameplay

Shadow Man is an action game comparable to games like
Tomb Raider
or the Legend of
Zelda series. Most gameplay takes place in a third person
perspective, though there is an option for first-person aiming. The
player can run, jump, climb, swim and perform various other
actions. Combat is focused on the use of firearms, the most
important of which is the Shadowgun, a pistol through which Mike
can channel his shadow power and reap life energy from his enemies.
Numerous other weapons also exist, such as voodoo implements,
ordinary Earth weapons, and some oddly-designed Deadside
firearms.

Shadow Man is also one of few games of its time to
feature a 3D targeting feature (pioneered by The Legend of
Zelda: Ocarina of Time a year earlier). This allowed for the
player to lock-on to an enemy and strafe around them as desired
during combat. Also unique to a game of its time, Shadow
Man has a dual-wielding system, allowing the player to equip
two items controlled by two different buttons/keys and use them
independently of each other yet at the same time.

The main focus of Shadow Man is the collection of "Dark
Souls", a set of 120 indestructible souls which imbue Mike with
greater power once enough are absorbed. These are what Legion
intends to implant into his army of monsters, thus making them
immortal. As the player collects them their shadow power level will
increase level by level (to a maximum of 10), which serves two
purposes: it increases the charge potential of the Shadowgun so the
player can cause more damage, and it determines what level of
coffin gates (coffin-shaped doors that restrict access to portions
of the game) the player can open in Deadside. The player's voodoo
meter increases in tandem with their shadow level, allowing voodoo
weapons to be used for greater periods.

A secondary focus of the game is the collection of the small
ceremonial pots cadeaux (French for "gifts"). When the
player has collected one-hundred cadeaux, they take whom to the
Temple of Life and offer them to the Loa (gods of
Deadside) so as to increase their life meter by one unit. There are
five-hundred and twelve to collect in total, resulting in a
possible ten health units.

Another point of interest is Shadow Man's non-linearity. The player can
play through the game as who likes with the only limitation being
the number of dark souls in the player's possession. For example,
the five main bosses of the game can be fought in any order
provided the player has access to both whose shadow powers in
Liveside and the relevant area.

Reception

Shadow Man received mostly positive reviews (with the
exception of the PlayStation version), with the only major
complaint being an excessive amount of backtracking due to the
game's non-linear style of play, which led to many players getting
lost or stuck. To date Shadow Man has sold around 1
million copies on every platform it was released on, making it one
of Acclaim's greatest success stories.

There was a sequel for the Playstation 2 Shadow Man: 2econd
Coming and rumors have surfaced of a 3rd Game in the series made by
Buena Vista games, but details are scarce.

Differences between
the game and the comic

Apart from the underlying theme of voodoo mythology, both
Shadow Man the game and the original Shadowman comic book series
have very little to do with one another. The only real connection
is the main character of the comic, Jack Boniface, making a small
cameo in the game as a past Shadow Man mentioned by name only in a
report that is available for the player's viewing in-game.

However, a second series of Shadowman comics (renamed
Shadow Man, with the space that is present in the title of
the game, or Shadowman V2) was launched near the release
of the game. This second series and the game itself are nearly
identical, sharing, among other things, Mike, Jaunty, and the
revisited Mama Nettie.